


Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, Evil Clones Are Such a Struggle

by Cinnamon_Anemone



Series: Tony Stark Bingo (2019-2020) [7]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fade to Black, M/M, Multi, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Self-cest, The Winter Soldier is a separate personality, Threesome - M/M/M, Tony gets to realize his dream of being the filling in a supersoldier sandwich, and he isn’t super concerned with sexual norms, like not screwing your alternate-identity clone or the person whose parents you assassinated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25029499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamon_Anemone/pseuds/Cinnamon_Anemone
Summary: When taking down a Hydra base, you should probably avoid touching anything weird-looking and potentially magical.(Or, Bucky and Winter both have the hots for Tony, and a newly-embodied Winter decides to finally do something about it.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark/The Winter Soldier
Series: Tony Stark Bingo (2019-2020) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472486
Comments: 12
Kudos: 223
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, Evil Clones Are Such a Struggle

**Author's Note:**

> This fulfills my S2: Kink - Double Penetration square (card #3045) for the 2020 Tony Stark bingo. 
> 
> For the record, this will be a fade-to-black fic because I’m not confident writing three-ways, so I apologize to anyone who was hoping for an E rating. But rest assured, behind the scenes, Tony gets exactly what the bingo prompt promises. 😏

Honestly, Bucky should have known better.

Given Hydra’s obsession with collecting supernatural artifacts and doing all kinds of fucked up science and just generally Meddling With Forces Beyond Our Ken, it’s a good rule of thumb when clearing a Hydra base to stay the fuck away from anything that isn’t immediately recognizable. Especially inside a creepy abandoned Hydra lab. So, really, Bucky has only himself to blame for ignoring Winter’s mental growl of warning and picking up the weird metal cube. 

As soon as his hand touches the object, he is seized by a horribly disturbing sensation that doesn’t hurt but feels like ripping and falling and—

 _Oh my god. That was so stupid. Why did I do that?_ is Bucky’s last thought, and then the cube drops from his nerveless fingers and unconsciousness comes crashing down. 

* * *

  
Bucky wakes, and immediately regrets it. Holy hell, how many garbage trucks did he get run over by? His head is pounding, and he hasn’t felt this sore since Steve kicked his ass on the Helicarrier two years ago. What the fuck? 

He groggily rewinds his memory, trying to dredge up what he was last doing that would have… Oh. Right. Fucking Hydra bullshit. Goddamn… evil magic cubes. Christ. 

Bucky expects Winter to pipe up any second with _‘you are an idiot, Barnes,’_ and he waits resignedly for the rush of annoyed disappointment from his mental roommate. 

Silence. 

Perturbed, he casts his awareness into the place in his brain that Winter usually occupies, and finds it still and empty. 

Bucky flails in his bed – hospital bed? – and peels his eyes open, blinking furiously against the harsh fluorescent lights. 

“You are an idiot, Barnes.”

The familiar voice soothes Bucky’s alarm for a moment— until he realizes that the words didn’t come from inside his own head, but were spoken out loud by someone physically present in the room. He whips his head around to the source, and forces his uncooperative eyes to focus on… himself. 

“Oh, what the goddamn hell,” Bucky groans, flopping back onto his pillow. “You gotta be kidding me.”

The man sitting beside him is his perfect twin – right down to the metal arm – except for something subtle in his eyes and the way he holds himself. Something both intimately familiar and deeply alien. And James thinks he has a pretty good idea now of where his murder-inclined headmate went.

“Winter,” he sighs, still sort of hoping that someone else will walk in and tell him he’s hallucinating.

Winter cocks his head. 

Suddenly, there’s the sound of sneakers skidding on linoleum, accompanied by a muttered stream of cursing. Bucky catches “...slippery son-of-a-bitch, you’d better not have—” and then Tony Stark careens into the doorway, looking frazzled. 

His eyes widen when he sees the two of them. “Oh, okay, so, you’ve already met. Not how we planned to do this, but no plan survives first contact, etcetera etcetera, I’m sure you know the drill. God, Barnes in stereo— that is never going to get any less weird. Anyway.” He claps his hands together. “Great. We’re all on the same page now. Hospital jello, anyone?”

“I don’t want jello,” Winter calmly opines. 

“Wait a damn minute, Stark,” Bucky says, with noticeably less calm. He pushes himself upright and winces at the surge of pain the movement causes. Jesus, this headache is bitch. “We are not on the same page, because I just woke up looking at carbon copy of myself who I’m pretty sure is the physical manifestation of the psycho alternate personality Hydra left behind in my brain, and I have no goddamn idea how the fuck that happened. So wherever you are in the book that’s farther along than ‘page one: what the fuck,’ I’d really appreciate the sparknotes.”

“Good modern cultural reference, old-timer, I’m proud of you. But, I hate to break it to you, that’s pretty much where we are, too. Sergeant Sticky Fingers gets his mitts on something, and suddenly it’s a supersoldier BOGO sale at the Hydra outlet mall. You probably know more than we do, since we don’t even know what you picked up. And don’t call your brain twin a psycho, you’re hurting his feelings. He’s making puppy eyes at me.”

Bucky glances over at Winter. He’s not sure he would call that ‘puppy eyes’ – maybe ‘sullen annoyance’ – but Tony has always been strangely perceptive when it comes to the Winter Soldier. Bucky raises his eyebrows. Winter’s eyes shift away from him, and though Bucky is no longer privy to his alter’s emotions, he gets a very clear message of ‘I’m ignoring you.’ Bucky lets out a surprised huff of amusement. So that’s how it is, huh?

He shakes his head – ugh, mistake – and reaches for the cup of water sitting on the tray next to his bed. He takes a few sips. “I don’t know what to tell you, Stark. Last thing I remember is picking up some kind of metal cube. Didn’t look like much – thought it might just be a chunk of scrap metal, to tell the truth. Felt weird for a second, then I blacked out.” He shrugs. 

“Hmm.”

Bucky sighs. “That’s not a good ‘hmmm,’ is it?”

A tablet has appeared in Tony’s hands (Bucky swears Tony apparates the damn things out of a pocket dimension), and he’s swiping through some sort of list. “Well, the thing is, Buckster... nobody on the clean-up team inventoried a metal cube. And nothing’s coming up with readings that would be consistent with a mystical artifact. So whatever you touched either shapeshifted and went dormant, or it went poof. That might have been a one-way ticket, kids.”

“Oh, hell,” Bucky mumbles. Winter just looks at them both and blinks slowly. 

Before Bucky has time to ruminate on the implications of that, they’re interrupted by the sound of another pair of running feet squeaking down the hallway.

“Tony! Are you in here? I just checked the other room, one of them’s gone. We need to— oh.” And Steve makes his appearance, looking even more frazzled than Tony had. “ _Oh_. Uh. So, do we know…”

“Which is which? I’m sure it won’t shock you to learn that the escape artist is everyone’s favorite Hydra assassin, and your childhood BFF is the one who looks like someone peed in his Cheerios.” Tony points to both of them in turn, in case his colourful descriptions weren’t clear enough. 

“‘Escape artist?’” Bucky squints at Winter. 

Winter shrugs. “I woke up. The door was unlocked. I left.” 

“We didn’t know which of you was which,” Tony explains. “Actually, we didn’t even know for sure you’d been split up, but it seemed like a good bet. Anyway, nobody liked the idea of locking both of you in Hulk’s time-out room until we figured it out, so I very magnanimously argued that we give Winter the benefit of the doubt and put you both in the normal medical wing. The idea was to break it to you gently before we did the official meet-and-greet, but evidently your pal here had other ideas.”

“I needed more intel,” Winter says, unruffled. 

“I’m sure you did, big guy,” Tony replies, and Bucky swears his tone sounds almost fond. 

As… interesting as that is, it’s hard to focus on Tony when Steve is beaming approximately ten million amps of Intense Steve Vibes in Bucky’s direction. “Bucky… it’s… That’s really Winter? And you’re… You’re you? You’re all you?” Steve stares at Bucky like a golden retriever puppy looking at the last milk-bone in existence. Speaking of puppy eyes. 

“Seems like.” That probably came out a little grumpier than it needed to be, but Bucky’s head is still killing him and he hasn’t even remotely begun to process this situation, so he’s not in the best mood to deal with Steve being so… _Steve_. “You called that wizard doctor, right?” Focus on the practical. Steve and his Steve Feelings are a problem for Future Bucky. Ideally a Future Bucky who doesn’t feel like a frag grenade went off between his ears. “Don’t know about you, but this feels like a ‘call in the experts’ situation to me. If I’m gonna keep budding off personalities like a goddamn amoeba, I’d like to know ahead of time.”

Steve looks alarmed, while Tony’s eyebrows inch up towards his annoyingly perfect hairline. 

“Uh, that’s not… that’s not going to happen, right?” Steve looks to Tony for confirmation.

“Probably not. But _imagine_ the possibilities.” Winter perks up like a dog with a scent, and Stark, the bastard, _smirks_. 

Bucky drags his flesh hand down his face and groans. “I fucking hate magic.”


End file.
